Last week was doom and gloom and how much bourbon would it take to survive the Miami game.
We even had a thread for survival tips.
Laments of whether we could even get bowl eligible and possibly losing out.
Our Hokies came within 1 play, refferee call OR a few seconds from beating a legit top 10 on the road. It was a thrilling nail biter of a game
They played the whole game. Dumb penalties were very minimal. Our explosive plays were in abundance just as one of our crew posted an excellent post identifying that exact thing as our strength.
Our team yesterday, on national TV on Friday night showed we are capable of winning out.
Soooo damn close!
Let's Go!
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This post is needed. The sky is not falling. We fight on.
Hokies!!!!!!!
Measured take. I honestly had more fun watching that game last night, controversy included, than i have in years. Certainly more than the first 4 games combined. Still seeing some clock management issues, questionable coaching decisions, but the team played their collective ass off. Very proud of our guys. Sad that the game came down to some nerds in a booth, but could not be prouder of the team and their effort.
I think he caught it, and they called it that way on the field, and I was very surprised they overturned it, AND by the explanation, out of bounds player touching the ball. That being said, i like my team more now than I did a week ago.
Go Hokies
I wholly agree with this. It felt great to go blow for blow with Miami. It was a return to a time to when Miami week was the biggest week of the season. After the game, the Hokie radio crew was discussing how much Miami actually hates VT. You could see the energy on both sides. You could FEEL it. Tech might not quite be back. Who knows if Miami is. But for a night the rivalry sure was!
Yes, the ending was disappointing, but we played well against a strong team. This game had a lot of positives and showed what playing tough for 4 quarters can do. It very much felt like a team effort and that was wonderful to see. Hopefully that effort persists and the team uses this as a springboard into the remainder of the season.
Oh yeah, Muck Fiami!
I was one of many Hokies that lost power for the weekend, I finally got power back and was able to watch a replay.
Thoughts.
1) I can't blame the fake FG decision. It was aggressive and being up ten a FG still leaves us at a 2 score game. However that was the worst designed and executed fake I have seen in a long time. If you are going to run a fake, have a much better one. It was easy to call it a bad decision in hindsight.
2) My understanding is the referee that overturned the call actually lives in Miami. How is that allowed to happen?
3) Anything that take you over 5 minutes to overturn cannot be considered incontrovertible.
4) All Corners should now be taught to run with one foot out of bounds and just touch the ball as the WR is making a catch and then cite our game that the ball was therefore incomplete. They opened the door, let it crush them.
5) and this should probably have been first. They played a complete game against a damn good team and should have won. Go Hokies.
Win out and play with a fury...and then show the ACC the middle finger winning the whole damn thing!
We play every week like last night and we may just do it!
Win the ACC and burn the fucking place down. Jump to the P2 and let tobacco road know they can get bent.
Fuck yeah
Agreed. Well said.
It's either going to be a rallying point, or a fracture point. I hope like hell it's the former
I'm not going to bring a negative attitude to this thread because we are indeed a handful of plays and 3 TDs away from being 5-0 and ranked. That's not O&M colored glasses speaking. We have the talent, we just need better in-game decision making and consistent execution.
This is the way!
I'm glad you made this thread because lost in cacophony of takes on the final call and the bumbled coaching decisions we actually played pretty good against a team that is more talented than us and so far has earned their high ranking. If we play like this the rest of the year I think we'll have a good chance to win the rest of our games. GT could be tricky and Clemson is obviously the elephant on the schedule but cautious optimism is warranted in my opinion.
Flash point for Pry's career here is right now. If the team loafs and feels sorry for themselves, we will win 3-4 games go on a big losing streak and Pry will be fired. If he is a good head coach- he will rally the team, not let them get too down and we will continue to improve. It's binary for a team with such a small margin for error as us. He has a great chance to right this game- Beat Clemson in Lane. Beat them. Don't come close- Beat a team that has been kicking our ass for 10 years. Clemson is not the Clemson of old. That is a winnable game. But every game under Brent Pry thus far is certainly a losable game. If we tank the rest of this year, he is going to be fired.
Yeah. The team yesterday and after the game did not look beat.
I really believe this is an inflection point. We either play pissed off and kick some tail the rest of the season or we remain dejected and roll over and quit.
We. Deserve. Nothing.
Want to turn it around? Then freaking turn it around. Take control of your destiny. Do your job and beat the guy in front of you.
We're not cursed. We need to work for our success. That's what got us here in the 90s. If the team we saw last night shows up the rest of the season we'll be fine. Go do it.
I explained to my son when we were up 34-24 and then while they were reviewing the Felton CATCH to expect the worse. It felt awful trying to impart the last 10-15 years of Hokie fandom of always look for disappointment and then it doesn't kick you in the nuts so hard.
But we talked after, and watching that game was a blast, warts and all. He is already looking forward to the next one. More like that one. Grow the next generation. Let's fucking go Hokies.
Man I want to be positive but it's just the same old song and dance with this program. Too many moral victories where we are trying to convince ourselves why we should be happy after a loss. Especially a loss that we pissed away for real simple reasons.
This fanbase deserves so much more than what it gets out of Merryman. And the more we try and excuse it away and keep looking for the positives instead of calling out the bullshit when it happens, the less pressure will be on the school to actually fix it.
It's long past time for the pitchforks to come out regarding the job Whit has done with this football program. And it's long past time he starts really feeling the pressure to fucking fix it.
Totally get being past the positivity but also let's try not to pee in anyone else's cheerios if they aren't there yet
I think the reason things felt so negative, given such a good game, was because we've already seen refs take away a catch from us in similar fashion (Michigan), it's like reliving a nightmare.
Then, we see a bunch of coaching blunders again (and again) in a game where they otherwise did well, it's like reliving a nightmare.
However!
1. That was the most ready our team has looked.
2. That was the best overall job our coaches have done, despite the blunders.
3. We. Finally. Fought. A. Full. 4. Quarters! Remember how badly we all wanted that!?
4. Like said by some others here, this feels like an inflection point, hoping our coaches take some good lessons and can work on cleaning up some little things with our guys.
We played a great game, huge bummer to be on the losing side, but I was absolutely dreading this game and now don't feel like I'm dreading the next...knock on wood...oh god I might be hopeful again
good post. totally agree
I think the one thing we can say for sure of Pry is that he instills a no quit attitude in his players. In the first four games the players never quit. We can say that the coaches didn't put them in positions to be at their best, but I'm not sure anyone can make the argument that they saw the team quit. And they sure had the opportunity with Rutgers...the way they were being pounded by that offensive line and running game in the first half...and yet they didn't quit.
I don't see them quitting now. It seems to me that the players are buying in the "every game is an opportunity" coach speak, and will look back at the Miami game as the proof of what they can do.
The travel dynamic to Stanford could be an interesting variable this week. But to me the fact that the players don't quit bodes well for the rest of the season.
I didn't realize a Stanford had to travel east coast and back so that at least mitigates some of the potential advantage they could've had.
The players just need to continue to overcome terrible officiating, and bad coaching to give us a chance!
The last two games have been fun to watch. Tough finishes for an invested fan, but great games.
3 plays away from 5-0. Pry is definitely making some questionable coaching decisions, but luckily that is something that he can get better at.
I don't think we need to abandon ship or abandon our coaches. Let's just focus on winning some games in the ACC and bringing in more talent in our footprint. We aren't competing for a natty against top teams any time soon so we need to stay the course and get top VA talent.
I keep hearing this, but which 3 plays are those? A TD in OT against Vandy? What if they score again? That's more than "1 play away". What 1 play in the Rutgers game are we referring to?
At least for the vandy game the FG that shouldn't have been bc of double zeros. That doesn't happen the rest of the game is the same we win at the end and they are kicking to tie.
Could probably argue that interception as well. That was on a screen and there was a lot of green ahead of the pass isn't tipped.
Not sure about Rutgers but I'm sure it's there.
Sigh...
For Rutgers, the 2 dropped passes by Felton behind the defense. Catches one of those, sn VT is at least in FG range. Also, if Marve doesn't call a blitz I to the screen pass that went 70+ yards, Rutgers would've had a difficult time getting into FG range late with VT's defense otherwise clamping down on Rutgers (and finally figuring out how to stop that one RPO).
But Rutgers made a lot mistakes too that allowed VT to get back into late.
The one Felton pass was way overthrown- not catchable unless you are Wembenyana- maybe.
yea, they weren't dropped, but unconnected. Both throws were more on Drones than Felton.
I was able to catch the very end of the game. As soon as the refs went to video review, I said "they're going to Danny Coale us again." Coaching and execution miscues aside, that was a devastating end to what was going to be a tenure-defining win for Pry and the squad. Absolutely gutted for the team.
Stanford potentially represents a second watershed moment in as many weeks. Will the team fold and give up on the season post-Miami? Or will they come out with a chip on their shoulder ready to prove a point? I'm rooting for the latter...
Regardless of outcome VT played a very close game that a lot of people watched and have been talking about positively.
And this really what we need more of for the long term future of VT - eyes watching.
And to think some 2M+ people in the SE didn't even have power to tune in.
I didn't have power but I did have a mobile device to watch the game. It lasted for the whole game but didn't make it through the last review.
That. Is. Pain.
Not when you go to bed knowing we were going to get robbed. I've watched enough VT football to know we don't get that call, ever.
My poor in-laws.... The review took so long to even take place, that when the Ref made the announcement that the play resulted in a touchdown, they thought that was him coming back out from the review and was giving the "Final Determination" of the play.
I had to Lee Corso them.
But I thought the Big10 was a way better product to watch and Rutgers and Washington are 10-20M more deserving than VT and Miami.
The ACC needs to figure out how to renegotiate and make it a P3. The money-making teams are there, the ACC needs to learn how to make sure they are always in the spotlight and ensure they're each a top team annually.
The best P3, one that has a possibility of challenging the P2, would be a conference that takes the top tier of both the ACC and the Big XII. Not sure I want to break down who would belong to that right now (because I'm lazy, and also because I need to get to workin'), but that's going to be what it takes. Shuffle the dead wood off the bottom of both conferences and merge the tops together.
The top of the B12 would be below the top of the ACC in terms of prestige. I would suggest that their best would be on par with NCSU (and current VT). I guess Colorado had some historical success but it's marred by so many years of complete dysfunction. And unlike the ACC with a clear set of a top tier, it's not as easy to justify who is at the top and who is at the bottom of the B12? Who would you want to join forces with? Colorado, TCU, K-state, WVU, OSU, and BYU? So many of teams of the B12 were only successful as G5 or never truly a top P5 team for an extended period of time. And I'm guessing only Colorado and TCU have ended a season competing in a National championship or as AP National champion.
But more to my point, the B1G only has a top 5 that people want to watch nationally with Oregon and USC joining their top 3. But, they were able to be anointed to the P2 because of that top 5.
The ACC has top 3 that people want to watch nationally. And nobody in the Big12 would expand that (except Colorado, but only because of their current coach). The national viewership interest for NCSU vs TCU or Louisville vs K-state, for instance, would be minimal.
Clemson, Miami and FSU have won Natty's since Reagan was president. No current Big 12 team has. There is your bottom line.
Exactly. And Miami still has a national following.
The riot is that right now FSU is a bottom third team in the ACC.
All of this is largely true, I just wanted to point out that Utah has won a natty* and is consistently good.
I missed Utah's natty?
*Undefeated in 2008 and finished #1 in most of the computer rankings. It's on the PAC12 record book for some reason even though Utah was a MWC team at the time.
I guess a better wording would be they have claimed a natty that the PAC12 and the computers backed up.
Eh, the system to crown a national champion that was agreed upon by all conferences was the BCS title game - won by Florida. They are the national champs from 2008.
Simpler times.
Friday is the new Thursday night. I hope we're in a lot more Friday night games.
We made our name on Thursday nights. Let's redeem it on Friday nights.
Friday games this year have been awesome and I think the primetime feel of college Thursday night games have been overshadowed by the NFL moving games to that night.
I agree, I think this is a calculated move by ESPN to get Fridays to get some of that magic that Thursdays used to have.